Especially for seniors

Staten Islanders are showing their age. Nearly 87,000 Island residents are 60 years old or more. Eighteen percent of the people who live here are seniors, which is the highest rate for any borough.

It’s the growing wave of the future. The first members of the Baby Boom that followed World War II are now 65. From 1946 to 1964, there were a total of 79 million births in the United States.

So it’s fitting that the city is going to equip senior centers to offer innovative programs for a new generation of older people living longer lives in the 21st century.

“The needs of seniors have evolved since centers were created 50 years ago and now is the time to re-envision the one-size-fits-all approach that has traditionally shaped many of our centers,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared the other day at the Joan and Alan Bernikow Jewish Community Center in Sea View.

There he announced that the city’s first eight Innovative Senior Centers will open in January. It’s part of his age-friendly city blueprint.

These pilot programs, which will be free to people age 60 and older, are to be funded with $3.5 million from the city along with philanthropic donations.

At the JCC, where this borough’s portion of the program is to be based, the focus for seniors will be on health and wellness, technology, arts and culture, intergenerational programs and social action.

The agendas at various innovative senior centers will include such programs as underwater photography, organic and vegetarian meals, rooftop gardening, technology courses, vision care and video conferencing.

To be opened in Manhattan is the nation’s first senior center geared to the needs of gay men and lesbians.

While still providing meals to seniors and the opportunity to socialize, the innovative centers - which are to offer flexible and expanded hours - will be held accountable for producing high participation and better physical and mental outcomes for older New Yorkers.

According to JCC executive director David Sorkin, the Sea View facility will become the host of the new Center for Life Long Development. There will be room to accommodate up to 300 seniors a day.

The health promotions at the JCC will make use of its fully equipped and staffed fitness center, featuring an Olympic-size swimming pool.

What about getting to and from the center?

Staten Island is one of the places where there will be “extensive transportation services to allow additional seniors from neighboring communities to access their center’s programming,” the city has announced.

Carol Dunn, executive director of the Staten Island Inter-Agency Council for Aging, has praised the Age-Friendly NYC initiative and “anything that approaches and looks at seniors in a new and different way.”

Yet we can’t help but remark that the Age of Specialization in senior centers dawns just six months after resources for older New Yorkers were placed at risk yet again by the city’s budget crisis.

We can only urge that this innovation, commendable as it is, not come at the expense of the city’s obligation to provide senior centers with the full array of basic services upon which so many city seniors depend.